


DON'T

by alizarin_nyc



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-15
Updated: 2010-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-14 05:01:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/145644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alizarin_nyc/pseuds/alizarin_nyc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything would be fine if Sherlock would just stop doing that thing that requires John to stop him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	DON'T

**Author's Note:**

> This was written because [This Drawing](http://dauntdraws.livejournal.com/32799.html) by [](http://dauntdraws.livejournal.com/profile)[**dauntdraws**](http://dauntdraws.livejournal.com/) will not leave my head. That is the source of my inspiration, but she is in no other way responsible for this fic.
> 
> Beta duties undertaken by [](http://users.livejournal.com/_doodle/profile)[**_doodle**](http://users.livejournal.com/_doodle/), for she is awesome and smart.

“Don’t,” John says, when Sherlock backs him up against the rough wall, grinning like a lunatic and caught up in the flush of victory. He’s a genius, and has proved it once again. The mystery is solved, the murderer is caught.

When Sherlock’s grin turns to something else, when Sherlock’s head bends low toward John’s, when his body crowds into John’s space, and the impossibility of it becomes inevitable, then imminent –

“Don’t” John says, his body automatically flinching away.

Sherlock doesn’t.

  
~*~

“Don’t!” John shouts. Sherlock is pointing the gun – _his_ gun – with intent. “You don’t want to do that, Sherlock.”

“Oh, but he does,” the woman taunts. “He does, don’t ya Mister Holmes.”

“If you kill her, Sherlock, you’ll never know why she did it.” John’s voice is steady. He keeps his panic to himself.

“You’ll never know anyway. I’ll keep this one ‘til the grave. If only just to drive ya mad.” She is mad, there’s no doubt. John knows that Sherlock’s logical brain has faltered on this one. She hasn’t outwitted him, she’s just been too mentally unhinged for him to get a handle on. She has killed without rhyme or reason, at random, and there have been too many victims. Sherlock is angry and frustrated that it took him so long to catch her.

That’s the sort of human emotion that John rarely sees in Sherlock – this blistering anger – and it unnerves him.

“We’ve stopped her, Sherlock,” John says, “that has to be enough.” Sherlock’s hand shakes with the weight of the weapon.

The woman laughs, taunting him.

Sherlock has to stay Sherlock, John thinks. If he pulls the trigger… if he _kills_ her, then he’ll lose something. John will lose something. “Please don’t,” John says.

Sherlock doesn’t.

  
~*~

“Don’t,” John says. He’s shaking and cold all over, wet through to his skin. His head aches from the blow he received and the insides of his skull are clattering around inside his head in perfect syncopation with his chattering teeth. Sherlock has just pulled him from the Thames, a daring and unbelievable rescue, and Lestrade and his men are swarming the area for the culprit, a rapist-murderer with a penchant for University girls. Sherlock is touching him, hands moving carefully over his head, looking for cuts. When he’s satisfied, he pulls off his coat to wrap around John.

It’s too out of character for Sherlock. His face is pale with worry. John must have looked very much like a floating corpse to cause this reaction. Sherlock won’t let go, though, but John would in all likelihood fall over if he did. So he lets Sherlock’s arms go around him, finishes coughing up the foul taste of Thames water into his shoulder and tries to breathe.

“John,” Sherlock says. His voice is shaky. It’s not even his voice, it’s nothing like the Sherlock he knows, and that’s more frightening than any assailant John could face. “I thought you were… I thought… I don’t know what I would have done,” Sherlock says. He looks intently at John.

“Don’t,” John says, shaking his head, watching the water soaking into Sherlock’s shirt, spreading like a blood stain. “It’s okay, just _don’t_.” For his sake as well as Sherlock’s.

Sherlock bows his head and releases him with a last tug of his coat around John’s shoulders.

  
~*~

John comes home humming after a lovely date with Sarah and he isn’t at all surprised to hear strange noises coming from the kitchen. Frequently there are strange noises coming from the kitchen, in addition to smells, explosions, smoke, fire and the occasional wild animal that’s not quite dead yet.

There is a hard tapping. Then there is a sort of inhale-snort. John freezes mid-tune and wills himself toward the kitchen. Yes, it’s Sherlock, a small space cleared away amidst the papers, test tubes and photos where he has cut lines of cocaine and he’s brandishing a small straw like a cigarette.

“Oh hello, John, I didn’t hear you come in. Nice evening?”

“Sherlock, what- what are you doing? Oh my God. This is- you can’t do this!”

Sherlock’s eyes narrow. It’s the expression he gives Lestrade when he’s being refused something he wants, or when someone is being particularly obtuse.

“It’s a three-line problem, John,” he says, waving at the case laid out before him. “I can and I must.” Sherlock’s voice is low and authoritative. His expression doesn’t change but John notes his dilating pupils.

“You don’t need it. And I don’t want you to need it.”

“Is this about you or me? Shouldn’t it be about stopping a killer?”

“It’s about all three you idiot.” John has stepped close, is reaching out to grab Sherlock, to stop him. He finally settles his thumb and index finger around Sherlock’s wrist, the one with the straw. “Don’t,” he says. “Let’s look at the case again. Together. I’ll make tea. I promise, we’ll figure it out. Just. Don’t.”

“Don’t you mean _I’ll_ figure it out?”

“Yes. That’s what I mean, yes.” John’s fingers are still circled loosely around Sherlock’s wrist. He lets go.

Sherlock lets the straw drop from his fingers.

  
~*~

“Don’t,” John says.

They’re in the hall leading to their flat and it’s not the first time Sherlock has leaned toward him with that glint in his eye, or penned him against a wall, or breathed on his cheek, just shy of meeting his lips.

“S’not a date,” John had reminded their waiter as he went about setting up candles and _Christ_ flowers on their table. He used much the same tone of voice as Mrs Hudson when she says “not your housekeeper, dear.” With forbearance aplenty. “Not a date,” he’d repeated.

At the end of the evening, they enjoyed a brisk walk back to Baker Street, revelling in the endless fascination they had for their latest cases, the manner in which they were solved, the loose ends that had to be tied. “Home at last,” Sherlock announced as he unlocked the front door. And John had realised with a start that yes, this was _home,_ one of the few places that had felt like it in his life.

They continued the joke they started on the street – Sherlock doing a dead-on impersonation of Donovan and John responding with a passable Anderson. They giggled like school children as they entered the flat.

Then Sherlock had to go and ruin it by turning to John and placing one gloved hand on his bicep.

Sherlock leans in and John feels his heart race, blood pounding behind his eyes, his breath coming in short little gasps.

“Don’t,” he says again.

Sherlock stills. His face is millimetres away from John’s. John can feel his breath, steady puffs of air against his cheek. John’s heart is pounding away in his chest, he can feel it and he’s sure Sherlock can _hear_ it. He doesn’t want this. It can’t be this way between them. There’s too much at stake.

John has never considered himself someone who could be attracted to men. So there is that, as well.

He has turned Sherlock down and any moment now, Sherlock will stop breathing against him, will turn away and go up the stairs and things will go back to the way they were before. Any moment now. Sherlock’s hand is still on his arm, long fingers banded around the muscle. Where John feels the pressure, there is also a tingle. He wants to move, to spasm, to shake off the pressure and relieve the itch. But if he shakes Sherlock off – if he goes that far – then things will take a different, more unpleasant turn, and that’s not what John wants either.

Sherlock isn’t a mind reader, but he’s sharper than a knife’s edge. “What do you want, John?” he asks, low and insistent. His breath is unsteady and his head tilts in that way he has, so now the short puffs of air are hitting John’s ear. John shivers. His cock has gone hard and he can’t control his own breathing.

“Nothing,” John says. “Nothing.”

Sherlock turns away, his coat whirling dramatically with the force of the movement. He heads up the stairs and John reluctantly follows. _Damn him,_ John thinks.

When John gets to the flat, there is no sign of Sherlock. There is a sliver of light beneath his bedroom door, which is unusual, particularly at this time of night. John walks up and raises his hand to knock.

 _Don’t do this,_ he tells himself. He skips making tea and goes to bed.

  
~*~

John has had the longest day of his life. He put in several hours at the surgery, which featured 17 runny noses, 3 STI’s, 7 rashes and one broken and gangrenous toe. Then he was due at Scotland Yard to give his statement on Benjamin Baton, the one who had raped and murdered those girls and then knocked John into the Thames. Once there, Lestrade and Donovan swarmed him with paperwork, some of it legitimately his, some of it Sherlock’s. The psychotic homeless woman who had started stabbing people in the street - the one Sherlock wanted to shoot – now had a lawyer who was going with a diminished responsibility plea and John had to write another statement about that. And there was an update on Moriarty, but the detective who had the details was just on his way back from a crime scene, so they asked John to wait. While he was waiting, Anderson came by to make snide remarks about Sherlock. Finally John got away and then remembered Sherlock had asked him to stop by the St. Bart’s morgue.

So it’s only natural that he runs into Molly who then unburdens herself about her relationship with “Jim” and ends up crying unhappily into John’s jumper.

Sherlock shows up just in time to distract Molly with thinly veiled queries about Jim’s favourite holiday spots, emitting slow nods of understanding at her while he gleans what might be valuable information about the criminal’s whereabouts. He whisks John away with unintelligible excuses and then they’re in a taxi speeding home. John is transparently grateful.

“Sorry about last night,” Sherlock mumbles into his scarf.

“Don’t,” John begins, and then he bites his lower lip. He’s always cutting Sherlock off these days when it’s routinely been Sherlock’s job to shear people off neatly and move past them with artless ease.

“Sorry, okay. About last night,” John prompts, and takes a deep breath.

“Yes. I’m sorry. You’ve made yourself clear and I have no intention of causing any distress in our home. Or in our work.”

John’s mouth stays open for at least a minute. Our home, our work? He’s right, of course, it is their home and their work, and that _is_ what he’s been afraid of disrupting. Isn’t it?

“Our friendship,” John begins. “Means too much.”

“Yes.”

“It’s too risky.”

“Yes.”

“I’m not even gay.”

“Well.”

“What? I’m not. I mean, if I were, I suppose it would be, well, I’d consider you or someone like you. But I’m not. And we’re friends and- and flatmates and colleagues.”

“Yes. All that.” Sherlock has been staring resolutely out of the window and John thinks that this is really sorting things out. They are going to be okay and everything will be fine. It will all be fine.

“Sherlock.”

“Yes.” Sherlock realises he’s being addressed and that that requires him to turn around so that they can have a ‘moment’. John knows the effort Sherlock has been putting into recognising social clues lately and wonders if it is because of him.

“Are we okay?” John looks at Sherlock’s face. It really is beautiful, and he really does care for his friend. That much he knows. At the same time, he realises that this conversation will probably mean the end of Sherlock’s advances. The end of John being backed up against a wall and stared at with those eyes. The end of Sherlock’s breath, hot and ragged in his ear.

John falters. For a moment he feels disappointed that they are just friends. For just a moment. And he is sure that Sherlock can read the quick flash of what he might want in his face. _Bugger_.

The taxi seat creaks as Sherlock slides a fraction closer to John. _Closure,_ John thinks. He’s got to close this uncomfortable chapter in their lives. He has to. He just has to open his mouth and –

“Don’t,” Sherlock says, and kisses him. John lets him.

  
~*~

They stumble out of the taxi, and John tries not to laugh at the bemused look on the cabbie’s face. For the last five minutes they’ve done nothing but snog and breathe heavily in the back seat.

John is incredibly turned on by the kiss, and he’s not sure what will happen next. Sherlock may try to push his luck, or with any luck, he’ll leave John alone and they can pretend the kiss never happened. Or that it happened, and now that it’s out of the way, they can get on with their lives and not ruin their friendship.

But the minute the door to the flat is shut, John finds himself backed up against it. Okay, he’ll let Sherlock kiss him again, but that’s it. He has to draw the line somewhere.

Sherlock’s hands start to roam, divesting John of his coat and sliding his own off his shoulders.

“We really don’t want to do this,” John says. “Really.”

“Don’t we?” Sherlock pulls back and raises one eyebrow at John. He looks him up and down, pausing midway to note John’s obvious arousal. “Because I think we do.”

“It can’t happen, it’s not… this isn’t…” John puts his hands out in a placating gesture in front of him without quite pushing Sherlock away. He waves his hands. He can’t explain any more than he already has, and now he’s lost the thread of the argument. He would _love_ to, that’s the problem. He would love to do this. But he can’t.

“You want me, John. I want you. From a purely logical standpoint, I’m afraid I can’t see your reasoning.” Sherlock leans in to lazily lick John’s neck. He opens his mouth to gently suck at John’s pulsepoint. His fingers are tracing patterns on John’s hips, slowly lifting his shirt to get at skin.

“Don’t,” John says as Sherlock’s tongue moves to his ear.

“Don’t,” John says as Sherlock tugs at his belt with one hand while unbuttoning his shirt with the other.

“Don’t,” John says as Sherlock winds his arms around John’s neck and resumes kissing him, the word coming out as a breath into Sherlock’s waiting mouth.

“Don’t” John says, wrecked, as he leans against the door while Sherlock removes his own shirt and shoes.

“Don’t,” John says, as Sherlock sinks to his knees and folds back the placket of his jeans as if he’s making the world’s most precise paper airplane. John doesn’t say anything as Sherlock pulls out his cock, takes the tip into his mouth and sucks gently. He starts to shake, first his knees, then his whole body. Sherlock strokes him reassuringly, chest, arms, hands, and then hips and arse. He pulls John into his mouth, moving him to a rhythm he finds suitable.

John lets him. He doesn’t stop him. He can’t.

“Do—Oh God, do it, please, don’t stop. Don’t. Stop.”

Sherlock doesn’t stop.

John comes, pushing a fist down onto Sherlock's shoulder and biting back a shout. He sinks down on his heels, still shaking. Sherlock is there, perched on his knees still, his face a colourful palette of reddened lips, flushed cheekbones, pale eyes and dark hair.

“Don’t tell me you don’t want me, John.” Sherlock’s voice is level, controlled. His eyes are a different story. He’s waiting for John to say that he doesn’t want him, that he wants to forget all this nonsense and go back to being flatmates. And John can see that Sherlock would still be patient. He’d still corner John when he could and make him admit that he wants this.

“Say yes, John.”

He can also see that Sherlock is tired of hearing _no_ , of feeling rejected – and it’s not even an ego thing. Sherlock looks vulnerable and strange. It makes John’s heart clench in his chest.

John knows when he’s been defeated, so he might as well surrender gracefully. He pushes Sherlock down on the carpet, and sets to work on what clothing remains. When they’re both completely naked, comfortably at home in their own flat, on their own well-worn rug, and Sherlock is laid out before him, John can admit to himself that he feels relief. He feels _happy_.

He leans over Sherlock and kisses him – this time _he’s_ kissing Sherlock.

“The things I’m going to _do_ , Sherlock,” he says, shaking his head and half-laughing. He skims Sherlock's skin with his hand, a promise of so much more.

“Oh, the things I’m going to do to you.”

*end*


End file.
